Today, the Romney campaign is hosting an entire series of campaign events based on President Obama’s misinterpreted comment about small businesses. While Obama’s full speech made a “no man is an island” argument, the Romney campaign has seized on the quote, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that” as evidence of Obama’s disdain for small business owners.

Romney, ignoring the fact that he has echoed this same sentiment on multipleoccasions, organized 24 “We Did Build This” events in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Nevada. At each event, local business owners are speaking about their self-sufficiency in running a business and how government is hindering their growth.

But, like the New Hampshire business owner showcased in Romney’s attack ad on the issue, many of these business owners have received significant support from the government, a ThinkProgress’ analysis finds.

Ball Office Products hosted the “We Did Build This” event in Richmond, Virginia. The company received a loan of $635,000 through the Small Business Administration in 2012, according to USASpending.gov. The company was also awarded a lucrative $52,525 contract with the General Services Administration just a year after its founding.

Midwest Tapes, a media distributor of Holland, Ohio, was showcased at a local event andreceived stimulus funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Midwest Tapes has been contracted by the Department of Defense since 2008, earning a cumulative $13,659.

Columbus Truck and Equipment was featured in a neighboring event and has received $6,643 in contracts with the Department of Defense.

Cranston Material Handling Equipment Corporation, the owner of which spoke Wednesday morning at a campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has reaped a total of $61,729 in contracts with the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs since 2007.

Systems Engineering Co.The owner of Systems Engineering has received a total of $180,200 in DOD contracts, as recently as last year.

Larson Group, which sent its owner to the local Romney event in Missouri, was awarded $3,845 in stimulus funds.

Brady Industries in Las Vegas has received $54,425 in contracts with Veterans Affairssince 2009.

While the “We Did Build This” event was intended to “allow small business owners the chance to respond to President Obama’s claim,” it is clear that many of these owners exemplify the combined powers of individual effort and government support that Obama — and Romney — have praised.

UPDATE

The Tampa Bay Times reports on two more local businesses that benefited from government contracts, A.D. Morgan Corporation and Value Enterprise Solutions.

An adviser to Mitt Romney told a London paper that Obama has not been an effective partner for Britain because he doesn’t “fully appreciate” America’s “Anglo-Saxon hertiage.” The racially tinged comments come hours before Romney lands in London for a series of high level meetings and the opening of the Olympic Games.

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

The comments were the lastest attack by the Romney campaign on Obama’s multi-cultural heritage. Last week, Romney campaign co-chair John Sununu said Obama didn’t understand the “American system” because he “spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia.” Sununu also said Obama needed to “learn how to be an American.” (Sununu later apologizeD for that remark.) Later that day Romney called Obama’s policies “extraordinarily foreign.”